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Thursday, 6 September 2018

Ethnic Minority Communities are in extreme poverty in East London

I recently advised Shazna Rahman*, a Bangladeshi Muslim woman in Newham. She came to seek debt advice from me at Toynbee Hall, a charity in Tower Hamlets that helps communities in poverty. She was wearing full black burkah. This is a piece of clothing covering her body completely. It was not the manifestation of her faith that struck me most, but the reality of her difficult and hard life. Her children were taken away from her by Social Services because she was unfit to look after herself and her children due to a highly traumatised divorce that resulted in a mental breakdown. She moved from Tower Hamlets to Newham into private accommodation. She claimed housing benefit to pay for her rent. After a few years, she became homeless when her private landlord wanted to rent the property out to a professional couple who would pay more. Newham council put her in temporary accommodation because she was deemed in priority need due to her mental health.

Shazna’s initial contact with me over a year ago was about her inability to pay £27,000 in loans and credit debts. I was able to support her with a temporary outcome by offering minimum payment to her creditors. But there appears to be an endemic problem in the East End according to research carried out by the Money Advice Service. I began wondering how prevalent indebtedness was in her borough. Newham has been categorised as the UK capital of indebtedness. 22.7% of its population are in debt. Tower Hamlets has the same level of people in debt as Newham. Hackney was not far from it - 20.9%.

From 24 July 2018, everyone who is of working age, and requires welfare benefit support is to claim universal credit in Newham. Data is yet to be analysed as to how communities in the borough have dealt with it. The roll out of the benefit will be extended to Hackney from October 2018.

Local government budgets have been significantly reduced because of welfare reforms. To maximise local income, council’s in the country introduced policies where the poorest residents were required to contribute towards their council tax bill. In Newham, at least 20% of the council tax bill needs to be paid by working households regardless of whether they can afford to pay.

Following the direction of Newham Council, Hackney Council, from April 2018, reduced council tax support from 15 to 17% for its working age households. Individuals who are on Jobseekers Allowance and Employment Support Allowance will find that they need to prioritise between paying for food or the council tax bill.

In Tower Hamlets residents have been exempted from paying council tax due to their low income. Individuals who are self-employed, however, are deemed to pay full council tax without means testing their ability to pay for it. This blanket approach has resulted in several Tower Hamlets residents seeking advice from me. Most of them are ethnic minority Bangladeshis.

Shazna’s experience tells me a great deal about the life of many forgotten minority communities in the East End. Welfare reform and policies are resulting in peoplewho were already in a precarious financial situation being tipped over the edge. The challenge for someone like Shazna is whether to pay her food or visit her local foodbanks. Her burka, in my opinion, covers the harsh reality she is living in East London. When she began to feel comfortable speaking about her troubled life to me, after a few advice sessions, she no longer wore the burka.

*Shazna Rahman is not her real name. To protect her identity and privacy I changed her name and slightly changed her factual situation.

I tell everyone I come into contact with why life does not have to be this. That means pointing out that origins of Neo-Liberalism, who the Neo-Liberal politicians are really working for (corporates etc.) and that money is not a problem for country like ours.

I use all the video information that is available to back up what I personally say.

As a member of the Labour Party I use all the same material to inform ordinary members that we must employ the right policies to convince the electorate that big business does not serve our interests and is not relevant to our needs.

People are the creators of wealth not those that get rich by the produce of those endeavours.

Ordinary people design, plan, and manufacture everything, all they need is the facility to do it. That is the unemployed can't create wealth.

The capitalist market system is destroying jobs and the planet, only people themselves can change that.

I believe most people know instinctively that something is seriously wrong in today's society, the problem for us, is that they just don't know hoe easily we can solve it.

That naturally will take time and a lot of effort to remedy, but essentially money in the short term will transform a lot of desperate peoples lives. and we have the money, it's just Neo-Liberal politicians that are standing in the way, those are the ones we need to get rid of first, people can do that immediately at the next election and even call for one now.

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About Me

I have been giving debt advice for over six years. I use live radio as a means to reach out to local communities to talk about debt and money problems.
I am also a community activist in Hackney, London.
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